Part II of II
I cannot comment on the quality of curriculum at some of the Christian schools because they don't disclose it. What I noticed about Carroll's classes is that they are
what students can get in the public school system. What I can tell you is that students attending the best high schools have the opportunity to graduate from them with the near equivalent of college sophomore status in terms of the breadth of subject matter they've studied. That allows them to either accelerate their collegiate career or study more at the lower cost undergraduate tuition rates, and graduate in four years with a master's degree rather than a bachelor's, or they can just enjoy college and take all sorts of interesting elective courses.
To get a sense of what I mean by that, take a look at
Andover's course catalog (or that of any of the other Ten Schools). What you'll find is that students can take courses like differential equations and linear algebra. For students aspiring to engineering, physics or other other sciences, getting those courses done in high school is a huge boon. The other departments as well offer many classes that are typically only found in colleges and universities. Thus it doesn't matter whether the student prefers arts or sciences, they enter college with a huge advantage over their classmates. (Note the pace at which the classes move. Quite often you'll see that courses complete in five, ten or 15 week spans, rather than whole school years, much as do college courses....thus, in part, why it's called "prep school.")
I wanted to point that out because, for most part, I suspect that pretty much any school that makes onto the Top 50 or higher on almost any rating organization's list is quite likely a very good school. That said, there are nonetheless academics that distinguish the very best from the rest. The academic offerings present one quick way for folks who aren't familiar with a given school to get a sense of what kinds of and what levels of academics are taught there and up to what level the students there perform. It's something else, besides test scores and college admittances, that gives one a sense of the teaching level. It also gives one a sense of the learning level kids are capable of if they but apply themselves. (It's worth noting that
Thomas Jefferson offers a fairly comparable range of courses as do Ten Schools.)
From my point of view, if a school district is going to offer a voucher program, the reason needs to be to make available to the students something they cannot otherwise obtain in the public school system. From what I can tell, unless a student is going to attend a top private school as a top performer who can avail him-/herself of advantages like those noted above, I don't see there being much s/he cannot obtain from a public school system. Also, I don't think I'm at all keen on the notion of tax dollars, via voucher programs, subsidising faith-based schools, not even excellent ones like Sidwell (Quaker), Prep (Jesuit), Groton and St. Albans (both Episcopal).
(Oddly, though each of the just mentioned schools is Christian, for some strange reason, they, along with many Catholic (Jesuit or otherwise) and other Quaker and Episcopal schools don't appear on lists of top Christian schools. I have yet to discern why evaluators don't generally include such institutions with other so-called Christian schools.
Only Niche seems to put them all together.)
Note:
I didn't look through schools that provide K-12 education. There may be some in that list that are highly rated and that have tuition within voucher range.
End of post pair.